EDITORIAL, Nov. 22: Burr, Tillis stand up for safe drinking water

“Blood is thicker than water,” the saying goes. Family trumps all other bonds.

Political bonds are pretty strong, too. But are political bonds thicker than water -- more specifically, safe water? Apparently not for U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis.

It’s not common -- or easy -- in this hyper-partisan age for politicians to buck their party, even when it seems like the right thing to do. So we think it’s important to commend our senators for taking a stand against President Trump’s nomination of Michael Dourson to be the Environmental Protection Agency’s top official on chemical safety.

That job is particularly consequential, and current timing makes it even more so. The person who fills the job will, as The Washington Post reported, “be in charge of implementing landmark 2016 legislation requiring the EPA to evaluate existing chemicals and set new risk-based safety standards … (and) would decide risk levels and pick the chemicals on which the agency should focus.”

Dourson is a terrible and, we think, dangerous choice. A toxicologist by training, he has spent years as a consultant for chemical companies, arguing on their behalf for weaker safety standards.

In the early 2000s, West Virginians became concerned about drinking water contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid. The toxic chemical -- better known as C8 -- was being discharged into the Ohio River from the DuPont plant near Parkersburg. To determine a safe level of the unregulated chemical, state environmental officials brought in Dourson.

On his advice, West Virginia adopted a C8 level 150 times higher than what even DuPont’s internal research had recommended. Dourson’s standard was 7,500 times higher than the strictest state standard elsewhere.

Lawsuits mounted and C8 eventually was proven toxic enough that DuPont stopped using it. Earlier this year, DuPont and its spinoff Chemours agreed to pay $671 million to settle thousands of C8 lawsuits. It was replaced with a very similar chemical, GenX. You may have heard of it. In fact, you likely had some in your coffee this morning.

Have the 300,000 or so people in our area who have ingested GenX been harmed? We can’t say for sure; no one can right now. That’s one of the big problems -- there are thousands of unregulated substances being dumped into our rivers. The chemicals need extensive safety evaluations by the EPA.

Here’s one thing we are sure about: considering his role as a hired gun for the chemical industry and record of regularly downplaying risks, Michael Dourson is not qualified to lead that effort.

Fortunately, Sens. Burr and Tillis agree. Both are very aware not only of the GenX contamination, but also Dourson’s push to weaken safety standards for trichloroethylene, the leaked toxic chemical that for years poisoned Camp Lejeune Marines and their families.

Let’s hope they can get one more Republican to join them in doing what’s right -- not for their political party, but for the safety of all Americans. Maine’s Susan Collins is leaning that way, and several Republican senators from states affected by chemical contamination could join.

It’s hard to understand how any senator could in good conscience vote for Dourson. We’ll have to assume that, for some senators, politics is indeed thicker than safe water.